Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime advanced to the main draw at the Miami Open with a 7-6, 6-2 win over Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi.

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Police say one of the three people arrested at an illegal drug manufacturing laboratory in Hammanskraal, outside Pretoria, is a registered pharmacist.

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This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa. On 21 March 1960 the apartheid police opened fire on unarmed marchers protesting against a law that forced black people to carry identity documents. Over 200 were injured and 69 killed. The following edited excerpt is from a new book featuring the prison letters of Robert Sobukwe, who organised and led the march.

In a letter of condolence written on 5 August 1974 to Nell Marquard, a friend who he had been corresponding since his time on Robben Island, South African pan-Africanist leader Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe made a telling observation:

I learnt some time ago that one cannot put oneself in another’s position. We may express sympathy, feel it and even imagine the pain. But we cannot feel it as the one who suffers it. They have a saying in Xhosa that the toothache is felt by the one whose tooth is aching.

Sobukwe, who clearly knew about suffering, loneliness and the impossibility of ever fully communicating one’s pain to another, was writing just after the death of Nell’s husband, the noted Cape liberal, author and historian, Leo Marquard. Given that Leo was a prominent liberal, and that white liberals had not always been friendly to the aims and agendas of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) – the organisation that Sobukwe led from 1959 until his arrest in 1960 – one might have expected coolness from Sobukwe. Not at all. Sobukwe, as always, was gracious:

I am thankful that I was able to talk to you two years before Leo’s death and more thankful that he died knowing how much his contribution had been appreciated.

Touching as this acknowledgement of his contribution would have been for Marquard, the real poignancy of Sobukwe’s letter comes a little further on, when he starts speaking of the myriad difficulties he has faced since leaving Robben Island, where most of South Africa’s liberation struggle leaders were jailed.

It has not been a good year for me. I had planned to leave [from Kimberley] … by car on the 31st May and make straight for Cape Town. But these boys [apartheid security police] beat me to it. They came on the 30th May, 1974 to serve the fresh lot of bureaucratic output. Well it’s good to know that our security is entrusted to such alert people.

Despite the fact that he makes light of it, one senses in Sobukwe’s letter that the constant surveillance and harassment of the security police was taking its toll. Behind the ironic salute to the astuteness of the police, there is also a disturbing foreshadowing. Steve Biko, in many respects Sobukwe’s most direct political heir, would be stopped and arrested on a not dissimilar road trip from Cape Town four years later, an event which would lead directly to his death at the hands of the Security Police. Sobukwe continues:

Veronica (Sobukwe’s wife) has had a major operation as you probably read in the papers. She should have had this operation last year, but did not and the condition got worse. She has made a remarkable recovery, thanks to my very efficient and tender nursing, and has now gone back to Joh’burg for a check up. From there she will be in Durban to spend a week or so with her sister before proceeding to Swaziland to see the children.

Between May 1963 and May 1969 was to spend six years of near-complete solitary confinement on Robben Island.

These circumstances had their origins in a momentous historical event organised by Sobukwe himself. On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe had led the Pan Africanist Congress in what he called a “positive action” campaign, protesting against the oppressive pass laws that governed the movements – and indeed the lives – of black South Africans.

This mass action resulted in the Sharpeville massacre later that same day, in which at least 69 people were killed when the South African police opened fire on a crowd of protesters. This event, which drew international attention to the injustices and brutality of apartheid, was a watershed moment in the history of South Africa. It led to a three-year jail sentence for Sobukwe for inciting people to protest against the laws of the country.

Not content that by 3 May 1963 Sobukwe would have served his sentence, the apartheid government passed an amendment to the General Law Amendment Act, the notorious “Sobukwe Clause”, which enabled the Minister of Justice to prolong the detention of any political prisoner year after year.

He was then relocated to Robben Island, and kept apart from other prisoners, where he remained for six years. The clause – never used to detain anyone else – was renewed annually by the Minister of Justice.

Sobukwe, in a very significant sense, was never a free man again after his 1960 imprisonment. The apartheid government unleashed a series of bureaucratic cruelties upon him after his May 1969 release from Robben Island. They forced him to live in the geographically remote town of Kimberley – far removed from any friends, family or associates.

They insisted he take on a low-ranking job that would have made him complicit in the apartheid policies that he went to jail protesting. He refused. They repeatedly refused to allow him to leave the country to take up job offers he had received from the United States; and they obstructed his attempts to get the medical treatments that he needed, and that would have extended his life (he died of lung cancer on 27 February 1978).

This then is the background to the consolations that Sobukwe sought to offer Nell Marquard in his 1974 letter. It’s only on the last page of that letter that he seemed to finally find the words that suited both his emotions and the note of commiseration that he wished to convey to Nell:

The Xhosa have standard words of condolence. They say Akuhlanga lungehlanga lala ngenxeba (There has not occurred what has not occurred before … lie on your wound). God bless you. Affectionately, Robert.

This resonant phrase – which also appears in Sobukwe’s letters to his friend Benjamin Pogrund – applies equally, if not more so, to Sobukwe himself. “Lie on your wound(s)” is a call to bide one’s time, to heal, and to reconstitute one’s self despite evident suffering. It is a call to have courage, to bear the moral burden of pain, and it provides an apt title for what was the most difficult period of Sobukwe’s life, namely his time on Robben Island, which the selection of letters collected in this book, published by Wits University Press, represents.

Dallas — A wallaby who apparently escaped his owners went on a walkabout in an east Dallas neighbourhood before being recaptured.

Tim Tiernan said he and his wife were taking a morning walk Wednesday when they saw what they first thought was a dog. The wallaby hopped into the couple’s driveway and up to their back door.

Dallas Animal Services officers eventually caught the marsupial in the couple’s backyard. The animal was identified as Muggsy and picked up by his owner.

Officials didn’t release the owner’s name or how the wallaby escaped. The agency said the wallaby is kept on a country ranch.

A wallaby roams on the front porch of a Dallas neighbourhood. The wallaby is native to Australia and New Guinea and part of the same family as kangaroos. Dallas Animal Services announced in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon that the animal, which they said is named Muggsy, was kept secure until its unidentified owner picked it up. Picture: Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News via AP

Wallabies are native to Australia and surrounding islands and are a close relative of the kangaroo.

A wallaby leaps to the front porch of a home in a Dallas neighbourhood. Picture: Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News via AP

The Government yesterday declared that it places international issues including climate change, digital divide, cyber-insecurity and crisis telecommunications at higher level of precedence in its change agenda, strategies and work programmes. Secretary to Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal stated this yesterday at Invention Africa Digital Summit 2016 (IAD) in Abuja. He observed that…

The considerable part of readers keeps on getting the most important Nigerian news on either Facebook or Twitter. Therefore, Naij.com has confirmed accounts in these social networks. Currently, it has more than 405,000 followers on Twitter and over 3.5 million subscribers on Facebook. This noteworthy news site provides contemporary information and other services. Statistics proves that almost…

EU leaders will tell Theresa May on Thursday she can have two months to organise an orderly Brexit but Britain could face a hugely disruptive ejection from the bloc next Friday if the prime minister fails to win backing from parliament.

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Chief Kensington Adebutu, Ogun State businessman and multi-millionaire, rewarded the Super Eagles with N50 million. It happened after the three-time African champions became the first country in Africa to enter FIFA World Cup 2018. In particular, Chief Adebutu thanked Super Eagles for their professionalism, determination, and commitment throughout the qualifying campaign. While communicating with midfielders Alex Iwobi…

The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps released the information that it had put under criminal arrest twelve suspects for multiple crimes from July to September. Particularly, the California’s Commandant of NSCDC, Mister Makinde Ayinla, told that the suspects were busted for such crimes as against the law oil bunkering, scams, rape, unlawful cultivation of…

It’s crunch time for Bafana Bafana in the CAF Africa Cup of nations qualifiers as they play away to Libya on Sunday.

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Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, is on Thursday expected to meet with taxi operators in the Vaal in Vereeniging and inspect the local taxi rank.

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Beira, Mozambique – Rescue workers in Mozambique fear that thousands more may have fallen victim to floods which have left a 125-kilometre lake after the African country was hit by cyclone Idai.

The storm made landfall near Beira on March 14, leading to storm surges and massive flooding, as well as a massive body of water in an area where hundreds of thousands of people live.

In the Buzi region near the severely affected city of Beira, a lake 125 kilometres long and 11 metres deep has formed, Pedro Matos, emergency aid coordinator of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Mozambique said on Thursday.

"Either they were able to flee or there are very large numbers of victims." At the moment helpers were mainly engaged in rescue operations, he added.

In Beira’s hinterland, river levels continue to rise due to prolonged rainfall. Thousands of people are believed to have sought refuge on rooftops and in treetops, the UN said.

In the inland province of Manica, more than 100,000 people are cut off from outside help because transport routes are destroyed, WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said in Geneva.

"The situation is likely to deteriorate and the number of people affected is expected to increase," Verhoosel told reporters, pointing to the heavy rains that were expected to continue Thursday.

Cyclone Idai, a Category 4 storm, could be one of the biggest cyclone disasters south of the equator, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and has brought devastation to several countries in the region.

The French Open announced an 8% increase to its prize money for the 2019 tournament on Thursday, with the men’s and women’s singles winners to take home 2.3 million euros ($2.62 million).

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Coligny – Drama unfolded at the handing over of a house to slain Coligny teenager Matlhomola Mosweu’s family in Coligny, North West on Thursday.

The teen’s mother Agnes Mosweu arrived at the event, organised by the African National Congress-ruled North West government, dressed in a signature Economic Freedom Fighters red T-shirt. Officials and ANC members wanted her to change her garb, but she refused.

"They cannot dictate to me what to wear," she angrily said.

Mosweu’s father, Sakkie Dingake, was seated at the back of the VIP tent erected for the handing over ceremony, far from family members who were seated at the front.

He said he was not invited to the event, adding that Agnes was not happy that her house was built at Gerdoren Park in Coligny and not at Scotland informal settlement where she lived.

Matlhomola Mosweu’s father, Sakkie Dingake seated at the back of the tent refusing to join family members at the front. He stated that he was not informed or invited to the handing over of the house. Dingake and Mosweu do not live in the same home. Photo: Molaole Montsho

The house is isolated and was near the place where Matlhomola was killed.

North West premier Job Mokgoro was expected to hand over the house to the family later.

The house was pledged by the former Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Gift of the Givers in 2017, following the death of Mosweu who was accused of stealing sunflower seed heads at Rietvlei farm.

The family had been staying in a dilapidated shack at Scotland informal settlement.

Born Matlhomola Jonas Mosweu, 16, the teenager was killed by Pieter Doorewaard, 28, and Phillip Schutte, 35, on April 20, 2017.

The pair caught Matlhomola commonly known as Faki, with sunflower heads worth R80 at their employer’s field.

They put him in the load bin of their van and drove off. Along the way Schutte pushed him out while the van was still in motion.

He sustained neck injuries and died on his way to hospital in Lichtenburg. His death set off mass violent protest in the sleepy maize producing town.

Six houses and three trucks were torched, several shops looted and damaged and the town was shutdown for five days until the two handed themselves to the police.

Doorewaard and Schutte claimed he jumped out of the van in an attempt to flee but the North High Court had rejected their version and accepted the sole eyewitness Bonakele Pakisi testimony that Faki was pushed from the van.

Schutte was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for murder, three years for kidnapping, two years for intimidation, one year for theft and two years for pointing of a firearm.

The sentences for kidnapping, intimidation, theft and pointing of a firearm will run concurrently, meaning he would serve an effective 23 years in jail.

Doorewaard was sentenced to an effective 18 years for murder, kidnapping, intimidation, theft and two years for pointing of a firearm.